Walking in the woods, the raven is the most common bird i see. They usually fly their circles over me in pairs and communicate with "kra-kra" voices. Then I greet them too: "Hi, Raven Brother!", "I'm here, Raven Sister!" They are ominous birds for most people, but i do not support this prejudice. They are very useful members of the ecosystem, very smart, easy to tame and sticky at a young age. An old friend of mine had a raven who learned to "talk," he told everyone, "You're smart!"
"Rare as a white crow!" Everyone knows this proverb. Albino specimens are really very rare, but they do occur. Like other albino birds and animals, they are unable to live in the wild for long periods of time because they cannot hunt because of their prominence or become easy prey.
People say ravens would be soot black? This is not entirely true either! The raven's feathers are shiny and sometimes iridescent in bluish-greenish-purplish colors in sunlight. True, this iridescence is quite weak, not like peacock feathers.
Shiny gray where it is exposed to direct light and black where it is in the shade.
My raven is like that, with shades of a bit bluish and purple.
Since I do studies, I work based on photographs. This lays the groundwork for me to be able to paint these by heart later.
I am aware of copyright laws, so I only use free photos.
My painting is based on a free Unsplash photo. Interpreting the background was more difficult for me than figuring out the details of the bird.
Watercolor on Canson 300g Mixed Media paper, A/4 block.
Colors(Sonnet watercolor): ultramarin blue, deep violet, orange, light red, golden ochre, Indian yellow, sepia, burnt umbra. In addition: Koh-I-Noor Titanium white tempera; black ink; Payne grey and cerulean blue(Van Gogh watercolors).
Step-by-step process
Sketching the bird and background with pencil.
I’ve learned from artists that I don’t hold the pencil in the usual way, with 3 fingers, but between my thumb and the other bent fingers (like little kids), so it’s not the tip of the graphite that touches the paper, but the side. This gives a darker tone to the darker parts.
When I drew it, I thought I was covering up some places in the background and on the edges of the pens with a little masking liquid, but that was completely unnecessary.
That many red tendrils made me crazy. Should I work out or not? They are so beautiful. But then it distracts you from the point, the bird!
I would do it differently now, blurry, maybe with a little bokeh effect.
I gave the raven a little bluish-gray base color.
I thought i needed to take out the Art Pen so i could work out the bird much more finely.
This made the picture harder and more graphic, but i think that was an advantage.
It was a pleasure to draw the raven.
The background unfortunately didn't get better, but one heck of it, other times it'll get better.
Some closer details:
Finally, i had an idea to rubber out the white background and save it as a PNG: